


Clockwork

by murakamism (VintageHandle)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Clockpunk, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:27:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1212661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VintageHandle/pseuds/murakamism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a fill for a prompt: <i> Sherlock was stillborn. His father and Mycroft couldn't bear to tell a fragile Mummy, so they went to a clock maker and made a clockwork boy that functioned like a real one, and grew like a real one. All was well except he needed a human heart, so Father (and Mycroft) steal him one. Years pass and Sherlock winds down, and he needs a new heart. Either Sherlock goes along with it and steals more hearts, or refuses and runs away. He eventually meets John.</i></p><p>Every day, the same dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> a fill for [this](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/17487.html?thread=108372815#t108372815) prompt on the bbc sherlock kinkmeme.
> 
> originally written and posted on march 28th, 2012. please excuse the purple prose.

  
Sometimes Sherlock dreams, dreams in the comfort of his darkening room, tucked away in the deepest recesses of his home. He dreams of shadows splayed against rusted walls, dreams of turning cogs and gears all polished and oiled, dreams of shaking hands and faces struck pale. The world is always a shade of orange lamplight, and the only other color he sees is a blood red (a living red, the kind that breathes and proves life, but he only catches glimpses, and it feels so different that his heart clenches, threatens to pop out of his chest—)  
  
He always wakes with his heart heavy and pounding against his ribcage. If he listens intently enough, he can fool himself that he hears the throbbing of flesh against metal, but it always grows weaker as the days pass. He always wakes with his limbs entangled in the sheets and his body drenched in sweat (cold, living, sweat).  
  
The nights are always silent, cold, dark. He always returns back to sleep, allowing himself the comfort of deep slumber.  
  
(Every day, the same dream)

  
  
  
Sherlock is twenty-one when it first happens. He is at home, in the company of Mycroft, his unknowing mother, and the aftermath of his deceased father lingering about the house.  
  
By the fireplace, he is warm. But he is tired, groggy, a different kind of tired, and suddenly the world muddles together, spins, and blacks out.  
  
(He remembers that his last thoughts are about how Mycroft is looking chubbier lately, but his last memory is that of Mycroft's face: afraid, panic-stricken, and not that dissimilar to his younger father's in his own dreams)

  
  
  
Sherlock wakes in his room. He turns to find his brother staring at him, his hands gripping the armrests of a chair opposite the bed.  
  
"Sherlock," Mycroft begins in a tone that Sherlock hates. It always means a lengthy speech about Sherlock and his behavior, his mannerisms, how he has to  _change_. It means Mycroft will nag and nag. "We need to talk."  
  
Sherlock groans. He tries to sit up but the air escapes his lungs and he finds himself pushed back onto the bed by the flurry of the air and his body conspiring against him, staring up at the immaculately white ceiling. He swallows, finds that his heart pounds harder than it ever has.  
  
"There's no escape, is there?" He just asks bitterly. He can almost hear Mycroft smile from across the room. Sherlock doesn't need to look at him; everything just makes him dizzy.  
  
"No. There isn't."  
  
(It shouldn't have happened like that. For once, he was deathly afraid and excusably shocked)  
  
(For once, Sherlock Holmes is disgusted by his anatomy; he believes that the childish insults hurled at him all his life have been - in all actuality - true)

  
  
  
"You aren't a monster."  
  
"Then how do you explain it, Mycroft? How has science evolved so?"  
  
The room grows silent. Sherlock glows, glowers, snarls. He is young; he is angry.  
  
"If science can't explain it, then what am I?"  
  
Mycroft meets his eye, but he still doesn't speak.  
  
(Monsters devour hearts to keep their worlds safe, tucked away into isolated globes, at the expense of human souls)  


  
  
Sherlock finds that his heart grows heavy with his bodily abuse (cocaine has always been a friend, perhaps the only one that lasted longer than anyone else). When he clutches his chest it doesn't always go away, and eventually he finds himself on his knees. He looks up and finds that he is alone in a pigsty of a flat - his flat - and he decides that the carpet is soft enough.  
  
He slips into unconsciousness. Mycroft snaps at him from the deep recesses of his mind, his memory. His mother cries. His father dies, over and over. People laugh, their names and faces irrelevant but engraved deep into him.  
  
(The world spins and disappears. This is better than sleep, better than the injected chemicals rushing through his veins)

  
  
  
Sherlock wakes in a mess on his desk (papers strewn everywhere, ink stains already forming on his skin, dried saliva, warped wood and an already cold cup of tea that threatens to spill) and squints as the rays of the early morning sun stream in through his window in horizontal slices, seeping in through the blinds.  
  
He remembers first a phone call, and then a conversation - face to face. He remembers Mycroft tapping his foot impatiently and gripping his umbrella a bit too tightly.  
  
("No,  _you_  do not understand, Mycroft. I do not want to steal a heart with your help. I am fully aware of the consequences.")

  
  
  
For a while he steals them so skillfully. It is a natural activity, essential to the conundrum that leads to his survival. He doesn't like it when Mycroft intervenes, so he tries his best to hide them and his brother will only arrive if he gets into too-deep trouble. With every beating heart held high up in his pale fingers, he closes his eyes and doesn't think himself a victor.  
  
Eventually, he finds no use in cutting up victims and stealing their hearts. He doesn't rip them out of their ribcages. He doesn't find any glee in uncovering flesh and muscle and ligament and bone. He doesn't enjoy the sight of a beating heart still in the recesses of a person, stolen by him and for him solely.  
  
It's no use. It's not fun. The people he chooses are specific. He runs out of them quickly, and it grows bothersome to keep on hunting for them, grows bothersome to always have to hide his tracks and cover up clues.  
  
He stops robbing the living of their finely-crafted hearts, gifts of generations past to pump blood through veins and encase souls.  
  
(Sherlock looks at his gaunt self in the mirror and grips his arms, feeling for clockwork bones)  
  


  
Sherlock knows London like the back of his hand. He breathes London air and feels the blood of London rushing through his veins. He is a child of London (or a lover, or a brother; somewhere, he knows these are all true) as much as he is a child of his parents and a certain old man made clock maker.  
  
With the polluted wind tugging at his clothes and hair, and a slowly failing heart, he realizes that he doesn't want to die. He never did.  
  
(The hearts of the dead do not contain as much of the living as he needs for a more permanent functioning organ, but they contain bits of soul and love and heart the same, so he is content with them, only having to switch every few months or - if he is lucky - every year)  
  
(Molly understands this. She offers her heart to lessen his burden; he does not take it)

  
  
  
They are high on adrenaline and feasting on Chinese take-out like it's a meal fit for kings. In a way, it is, but they feast off of each other's presence, bask in each other's smiles and happiness. This is when John finds out, and he is neither disgusted nor afraid just as Sherlock fears. Instead, he is surprised (expected, boring, even though John is never boring) and offers to share.  
  
"It must be so tiring to keep on switching hearts, Sherlock."  
  
He allows himself a smile.  
  
"No, I've grown used to it."  
  
"Hey," John says. Wooden chopsticks encase themselves in the spaces in between his fingers. It's so natural for John to use them. (Sherlock associates wooden chopsticks with successful chases and successful chases with John and John with home). "Let's share. Mine is all ruddy and patched up. We can still share."  
  
"That is..." Sherlock pauses, tries to find the right words to say, tries to find the words he wants to say. He finds himself speechless. This isn't like him. He shakes his head, instead. "No, that's impossible. But thank you for the offer, John. Thank you."  
  
John smiles a small smile.  
  
"If you ever need it—"  
  
(John's heart is beautiful, too beautiful for Sherlock to take and claim as his own, beating inside of him. He'd rather it beat preciously inside of John, and then maybe John can be his, but not his heart - no, not that)  


  
  
"Cultivating your own heart, Sherlock?"  
  
Mycroft's smile is smug and Sherlock scowls at him.  
  
"Piss off, Mycroft. I'm not taking it away from him."  
  
"Why? Surely you don't enjoy taking hearts from corpses?"  
  
"He's my friend." A pause. "He'd give it for me willingly, but I won't allow that."  
  
Mycroft smiles.  
  
("You've got yourself more than just a loyal pet.")  


  
  
The latest heart doesn't run dry. He feels new everyday. He feels alive everyday. Sherlock doesn't know why, but he feels as if he's gifted with a new heart. Nothing tugs at his chest; nothing weighs him down like the weight of another dying organ.  
  
That night, he examines himself, fingers stretching and pressing against pale skin, steady fingers gripping tools to show, accustomed hands handling blades to cut and reveal.  
  
He's interrupted right in the middle of the examination by John, who wanders in by accident. He is afraid, Sherlock notices, but tries to be brave. He takes Sherlock's hands in his own and then patches him up, seals his heart back inside his chest. Soon, it is covered and no longer lies exposed. Sherlock looks at his friend curiously.  
  
John only laughs.  
  
"What is it?" Sherlock asks, his brows knitting together. "Why are you laughing, John? What did I miss?"  
  
John grins at him.  
  
"I gave you my heart. I told you, we'd share."  
  
"But that's not possible. You didn't put it in me. I didn't take anything."  
  
John shakes his head, wraps his arms around Sherlock and buries his face into the man's curls. Sherlock is quiet and the room is still.   
  
(He listens against John's chest. Their hearts beat in unison)

  
  
  
There is an old man who once made excellent clocks and is dying (his hours tick past, almost like a heart beating in the clockwork frame of a young boy), and Sherlock is home with Mummy and Mycroft, re-exploring the chambers that cushioned his childhood.  
  
Hearts are stolen and people break.  
  
There is an old man who is dead (long dead), and Sherlock is home at 221B with John, playing a violin sonata to soothe their after-chase nerves and to calm their slowly steadying hearts. Sherlock studies John just as he studies his memories, faintly buzzing at the back of his head, growing faint at the edges, half-deleted.  
  
(With John: every day, a different dream)


End file.
